Queer natives in Latin America: Forbidden chapters of colonial history

Abstract

This book defies long standing assumptions about indigenous societies in the Americas and shows that non-heteronormative sexualities were already present among native peoples in different regions of what is now Latin America before the arrival of European colonizers. Presenting data collected from both literature and field research, the authors give examples of native queer traditions in different cultural regions, such as Mesoamerica, the Amazon and the Andes, and analyze how colonization gradually imposed the models of sexuality and family organization considered as normal by the European settlers using methods such as forced labor, physical punishments and forced marriages. Building upon post-colonial and queer theories, Queer Natives in Latin America: Forbidden Chapters of Colonial History reveals a little known aspect of the colonization of the Americas: how a bureaucratic-administrative, political and psychological apparatus was created and developed to normalize indigenous sexuality, shaping them to the colonial order.